Transport Board workers protesting treatment by management

TRANSPORT BOARD WORKERS who threw the island into chaos when they left workers and students about to sit exams stranded following an early morning work stoppage are protesting the “disrespectful” way the board is treating employees.

General manager Sandra Forde, General Secretary of the Barbados Workers Union Toni Moore, President of the BWU division Neville Kirton and other union delegates are currently in a meeting to address the grievances.

Earlier, Kirton, said that union representatives were refusing to go to a planned 11 a.m. meeting because of a number of grievances, including the recent attempted appointment in a clerical post. The workers are contending that rather than filling the post from inside, the Board attempted to do so with someone, they said, was politically connected.

But Forde, who spoke to the media, said she was surprised by the industrial action since a meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m. between the board and the union.

“On the 23rd of April I sent a letter to the president of the delegation inviting him the vice-president and the secretary to attend a meeting this morning at 11 o’clock to discuss certain matters that I would like them to give consideration to … So I am very surprised at what I came and met this morning … I really think it is a poor indication of industrial relations as we see them in Barbados,” she said.

Moore visited the headquarters and later returned, while Leader of the Opposition Party, Mia Mottley (below, left) and a few members of her party went to hear the complaints of the workers.  (AC)